AdCycle SQL Command Insertion Vulnerability
qDefense Advisory Number QDAV-2001-7-2

Product: AdCycle

Vendor: AdCyle (http://adcycle.com)

Severity: Remote; Attacker may gain AdCycle administrator status

Versions Affected: Versions up to and including 1.15

Vendor Status: Vendor contacted; has released new version, 1.16, which is not vulnerable

Cause: Failure to validate input

In Short: AdCycle does not propely validate the user input. This input is used to form SQL commands, which are passed to a mySQL database. By submitting cleverly crafted input, an attacker can bypass the administrator password check.

The current version of this document is available at http://qDefense.com/Advisories/QDAV-2001-7-2.html.

Details:

In file AdLogin.pm, AdCycle uses the following SQL command to authenticate a user signing in:

SELECT * FROM ad WHERE LOGIN='$account' AND PASSWORD='$password' If an attacker signs in, using a account name of "ADMIN" and a password of X ' OR 1 # an attacker can cause AdCycle to use the following SQL command: SELECT * FROM ad WHERE LOGIN='ADMIN' AND PASSWORD='X' OR 1 #' The pound sign cause mySQL to ignore the trailing single quote.

Since anything OR 1 is true, the query will return a recordset, and AdCycle will think that the attacker has authenticated as administrator.

Administrator status allows one to modify the various ads. qDefense has not determined if an attacker can cause command execution using this technique.

Solution:

AdCycle has released an upgrade, version 1.16, which validates user input.

qDefense would like to thank AdCycle for their prompt response on this issue.


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